


Sara Always Was a Good Dancer

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:26:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a loss too many for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sara Always Was a Good Dancer

Sara looked great. Lithe, self-possessed, her own unique version of unconventionally beautiful. She looked hot, and it had nothing to do with the high temperature and humidity of a Deep South night.

Jack watched as Sara moved her hips in perfect time to the rhythm of the pounding bass of some god-awful rock classic from the 1980s. He couldn’t remember the name of the band. Long hair, high voices, tight pants. Pick one from hundreds. They all sounded the same.

Sara’s short, blonde hair was plastered to her skin and when she threw her head back, eyes closed, lost in the pulsating beat of the music, rivulets of sweat ran down her throat and turned the charcoal of her cotton shift dress an even darker shade. It clung everywhere, offering definitive proof that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples were obvious; tantalizing peaks that Jack had a sudden, overwhelming urge to suck and tweak right there in the smoke-filled downtown bar.

Christ. He must be well on the way to being drunk. From his barstool, he eyed the row of empty shot glasses and beer bottles with suspicion. They couldn’t have drunk all that, surely?  But he knew damn well they had. Kawalsky had shoved  a wad of bills in the bartender’s pocket with the message to “Keep ‘em comin’. And don’t fucking stop, even if we tell you to.”

Jack’s mood was as black as Sara’s funeral dress. That’s what the outfit had become known as in their house. Three funerals in a week and a half.  Three times she wore the dress while Jack wore his blues. Three times too many.

Bailey, Nevis and Brooker. Good guys from his unit. All died on the same fucked-up, ill-fated mission. All died a month after Jack made it back from Iraq, captivity and the Army hospital in Germany in that order.  He was on medical leave, trimming hedges in the yard and trying not to talk to counselors while his buddies died thousands of miles from home. He came home on a USAF transport; they came home in body bags. He should have felt lucky. He didn’t.

Kawalsky survived, of course. But then, Kawalsky survived everything. Kawalsky was the lucky one.

Jack’s black mood edged into something even darker, driven there by the alcohol and the prickly, irritating tension that wouldn’t leave him alone these days. He picked up the shot glass and downed it in one, relishing the smoky burn as it hit his stomach.

“Drunk enough?” A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. Jack longed for the contact as much as he wanted to push away from the touch. Kawalsky -- back from the john and gesturing to the bartender to line ‘em up again.

“Damn stupid question. For this, you can never be drunk enough.” As if to prove the point, he raised the little glass to Kawalsky before downing another.

“I hear ya. To Brooker.” Kawalsky raised his glass in return. “Bravest of the brave, dumbest of the dumb and mouthiest bastard I ever knew. May his shrimp po’ boys be forever fresh and may the zydeco fill his Louisiana heart for all eternity.” He drank the shot and burped. It was the closest to a eulogy Kawalsky would ever give. Jack smiled and said, “Amen,” just a little too loudly. Not that anyone noticed.  The bar was packed and deafeningly noisy.

Kawalsky turned to lean both elbows back on the bar and Jack watched him watching the dancers. Watching Sara. Kawalsky’s eyes raked her body slowly, up and down and then up again. He smiled. “She’s something else,” he said, his voice unusually tender.

Jack didn’t answer. There was too much wrapped up in any sort of reply. The soft edge to Kawalsky’s voice when he spoke about her went straight to Jack’s dick. Body memory could do that to you. Nights when the three of them lay spent and sated, their bodies entwined with no obvious beginning or end.

For all those reasons and a host of others, he couldn’t force the expected, “Sure is,” past his clogged throat.

Sara was everything. Kawalsky was  ... something. Something hard and sharp and necessary. He wished he could tell them that.

“She didn’t want you to go to the funerals, you know.” Kawalsky reached for another bottle, took a long pull, working his throat. Jack had to look away. “Thought it would be too much, so soon after ... you know. Coming back.”

The music pounded into Jack’s head. He felt a headache forming. “She knew I had to be there.”

Jack felt the weight of Kawalsky’s gaze on him. “Go easy on her, Jack. She thought she’d lost you. She’s been great supporting Beth-Ann, Carla and Sally. She could do with a little support herself.”

“Well, lucky for her you’re around, then,” Jack snapped. He felt cornered, like an injured dog facing an animal welfare worker. The guy was trying to help, just like Sara, but he couldn’t let himself be helped. If he did that, if he let them in, if he let them see ...

Kawalsky’s gaze hardened, and, for a second, Jack saw the guy he shared the frontline with. It rattled him to see that man here. “Be a fucking asshole to me, Jack. Don’t be one to her.” Kawalsky drained the rest of his Bud in one long swallow and turned back to the bar for a chaser.

The beat of the music matched the beat of Jack’s rapidly intensifying headache. He checked his watch. It was past eleven. They’d eaten in morose silence at a forgettable steakhouse after the funeral and Kawalsky had herded them straight to the bars instead of back to the motel out by Lafayette airport. No chance to change clothes. No chance to shed the fucking uniform that usually felt like a second skin but now felt more like a straightjacket. In his dreams, last night, it had felt like a shroud. Looked like one, too, in his bizarre subconscious. Medal-studded white silk draped seductively round his body, touched his soft dick and balls with an unbearable sweetness and made him hard, then tightened and twisted until he couldn’t breathe. He wouldn’t be telling his counselor about that little gem, forged in the blast furnace of his fucked-up psyche.

God, he wanted to leave this bar. He’d wanted to leave since they’d arrived. He hated that he was still wearing his blues. He should have insisted they go back to the motel to change. He really hated that he was being given the come-on by just about every woman in the place. Fucking uniform.

Kawalsky, on the other hand, was loving the attention the uniform brought. Two blousy, busty middle-aged women sidled up to him, one either side, hands all over him. They reeked of desperation every bit as much as Kawalsky reeked of beer and whiskey. A match made in heaven ... or hell, depending on how you looked at it.

“Hello, ladies.” Kawalsky turned on the charm and smiled wolfishly. He winked at Jack while putting his arms around the women’s waists and eyeing the vast amount of cleavage on show.

Jack’s eyes fixed on Kawalsky’s hands, watched them claim and stroke with a thoughtless possessiveness. Something inside Jack clenched hard. He pushed it away, rolled his eyes and took refuge in the Bud. He tried to tune out the giggling and smutty innuendo. But when he caught the “Is that an assault rifle in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” line, he felt suddenly sick. Thumping the beer bottle onto the bar, he cast one vicious glare at the oblivious Kawalsky and edged through the crowded tiny dance floor towards Sara.

They were leaving; or at least, he was. Sara could follow or not. Kawalsky could go fuck himself.

Hot, sweaty bodies pressed and pushed against him as the bass beat pulsed inside his head. He felt trapped and fought not to panic; too many people in too confined a space. Echoes of a stinking Iraqi jail and everything that went with it. He breathed through it, ignored the flailing elbow in his ribs from an over-enthusiastic dancer.

Sara was dancing opposite some guy. He wouldn’t say dancing “with,” exactly. Just moving together in a vague sync. He was young, jet black hair cut in an asymmetrical style that made Jack want to tie him to an Air Force barber’s chair. His white shirt was open to his navel, revealing a smooth, toned chest. His jeans were tight. He looked big down there, and why the hell Jack was looking and why the fuck he should care was beyond him. The man couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23. Young. Fucking young bastard. Fucking young bastard who didn’t wake up in the night screaming and didn’t piss the bed in remembered terror.

The guy was leaning in close to whisper something in Sara’s ear. She laughed, shook her head and closed her eyes, arms snaking over head as she writhed, her body sinuous and athletic. The guy leaned in again, emphasized his point, whatever it was, with pleading hand gestures. Sara just grinned at him and turned away, still dancing, still sexy as all get out.

Jack finally made it to her side, gave young guy the look and tried to speak to her above the din of the music.

“Time to get outta here,” he mouthed against her ear.

She put on hand on his arm and leaned into him. “What?”

“I said, time to go. It’s getting late.”

Sara pulled up his arm and peered at his watch, still moving, still seemingly on some kind of high. “It’s 11.28, Jack. We don’t have to get home for the babysitter. We _can’t_ get home for the babysitter. We’re free. Come on ... dance with me.” She took both of Jack’s hands and pulled him to her. He stood there, the immovable object at the center of a whirlwind.

“Jack.”  He noted the almost-pleading tone of her voice.  But he couldn’t respond. The distance he felt from her here was the same as the distance he felt at home. Sara cooked his favorite breakfast and he forked it into his mouth and tasted nothing. She massaged him with warm, soothing hands and he tensed and felt other hands.

The almost-pleading here was almost too easy to ignore.

“Fine. I’ll be back at the motel.” He tried to pull his hands from her grip, but she tightened her fingers on his. She was strong. He didn’t want to be restrained. He couldn’t ...

“Jack, please.” It shocked him to see her eyes fill with tears. Sara rarely cried. “I’m dancing.”

Damn her but she was still trying to breach the barriers. The ones he’d reinforced today with whiskey and beer.

And in a moment of clarity, he understood.

She was dancing for all of them.

They stood holding hands, fingers locked and tense, unmoving while everyone around them lost themselves in the music and the heat.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “ I thought you weren’t coming home. And then ... we lost the boys and ....” The threatened tears didn’t spill. Just stood in her eyes, accusing, glinting more brightly than the diamond he’d put so proudly on her finger.

She loosed her hold and Jack breathed. He hadn’t realized how rigidly he’d held himself while she refused to let him go. But he couldn’t give in; couldn’t respond to her in the way his heart cried for him to.

“So dance,” he said, feeling as much of a bastard as he sounded. He forced himself not to look away from her gaze. Wanted to feel her anger. Was eager for the pain that would come with the sharp rebuke in her eyes. But the anger never showed, just a sad, tired resignation, and that was almost harder to bear.  “You look so great,” he offered, trying to mitigate and failing badly. Jesus. He was _such_ a fuck. “I’m going back. Drag Kawalsky away from the bar when you want to leave. Okay?”

It wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay.

He leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek, tasting salt and smelling her clean sweat and fading perfume. She smiled, a small, sad smile and nodded. _Okay._

Jack turned and headed for the door. The place was more crowded than ever and he couldn’t see Kawalsky.

Emerging into the night was an instant, heady relief. It was still hot but out here he could breathe. He thought about catching a cab but decided to walk. Time on his own might allow him to clear his head.

He passed an alleyway that ran between the club and a warehouse. It was littered with cardboard boxes and dumpsters and was unremarkable, except for the noise that was coming from it. He knew instantly. He recognized the harsh, guttural grunting.  Knew instantly what was happening.

A part of him, a large, angry part, wanted to walk on by, but another part ...

He edged slowly toward the sound. “Unngh, _ungh,_ yeah, fuck fuck ...” He closed his eyes, and like a slow-motion movie he saw it – not a fantasy but a memory; Kawalsky thrusting hard into Sara, heard her echoing cries, felt the push and pull as his own dick took Kawalsky in counterpoint.

Two more sharp, deep grunts and a growling “Uhhhhh,” told Jack the man had come.

Pants round his knees, ass bared to the world, Kawalsky kept on thrusting, his back to Jack. The woman’s legs were wrapped around him, cheap red stilettos digging into his buttocks. She came in silence, the only clue when she threw her head back against the wall and it hit with a muted thud.

Bodies locked together, they panted for air.

Distantly, Jack realized he was hard. Self-loathing washed over him. A cheap, nasty, meaningless fuck in an alleyway could get him hard. Christ.

“Enjoy the show, Jack?”

Jack swallowed. How the fuck had he known? But then, special ops. Yadda.

Kawalsky and the woman from the bar disentangled and she adjusted her clothing.  “Not bad, flyboy. But maybe not an assault rifle. More of a handgun, I’d say.” She laughed, patted him on the cheek and winked at Jack as she teetered back to the club.

Still with his back to Jack, Kawalsky tucked his dick in his pants, zipped up, straightened his jacket. He turned around, fishing a pack of Marlboros and lighter out of his pocket. He met Jack’s eyes as he lit up; smug, self-satisfied. Empty.

“She’s not what you need,” Jack ground out, his cock twitching, aching to be touched.

Kawalsky stepped up close and blew smoke in Jack’s face. Jack took a hit. He missed Lady Nicotine so fucking much. Kawalsky reeked of sex. Jack wanted to go down on him right there.

“And you know what I need?” Kawalsky asked, eyes dark and challenging.

“I’m heading back,” Jack said, throat dry.

“And I feel the need to dance,” Kawalsky replied, taking another deep drag from the cigarette. Jack flashed on an image of his wife and friend moving to the music, sweaty, close, alone in the crowd. Yeah. He knew what Kawalsky needed. What they all needed.

“I’ll leave the light on,” he said, taking the cigarette from Kawalsky’s lips, drawing long and hard, and god it was so sweet and so harsh.  He handed the Marlboro back and tried not to flinch from an unintentional brush of fingers.

Kawalsky put the cigarette between his lips and took a deep drag, his eyes fixed on Jack’s mouth.

Jack stepped back onto the sidewalk, savored the last vestiges of the smoke in his lungs, in his throat, and headed for the motel without looking back.

 

ends


End file.
